The Cross of Lazzaro

by John Harris

  Their road blocks had already had to be moved further out of the town because of the interference with the crowds, and half their number were now engaged in traffic duties on the Via Colleno or round the boat-station.

  Caporelli watched the jostling people and the slow-moving cars directed by the disgusted police, then he threw away his cigarette.

  ‘Let’s go and see the miracle,’ he suggested bitterly.

  Inside the church they had got the cross lying flat on a tilted dais. It rested majestically on a red velvet cloth, unadorned in any other way except for a few wreaths that had been placed at the foot. There were crimson ropes round to keep off the sightseers and a queue had formed and was shuffling past – tourists, foreigners and Italians alike. Father Anselmo, or his curate, Father Gianpiero, had shown a great deal of stagecraft in the presentation of the spectacle, because they’d fixed up a spotlight so that there was a bright beam picking out the cross, just as it had first been seen in the lake gaunt, black and dramatic.

  Henry and Caporelli joined the queue and stood staring at the cross – Caporelli with a bitter fascination, almost as though he were confronting an enemy. It lay on its tilted dais with the dark bands of crudely fashioned metal on the base looking like the roots of some giant tooth. It was obvious on closer inspection that it had suffered more from its long immersion than it had seemed at first. Parts of it were decayed and, in spite of the care with which they had handled it, there were tiny splintered fragments, which had crumpled from it as they had laid it down reverently on its red plinth.

  There was a notice alongside, hurriedly printed in indian ink by Father Gianpiero, stating all that was known about it, together with the information that it was hoped eventually to erect it either in the church or in the Cathedral at Trepizano. There was also a large offertory box nearby, with a notice to the effect that it was for the restoration of the cross, and there was a steady chink of small coins.

  In the queue people were crossing themselves as they passed and, further back, in the shadows, women wearing black shawls were kneeling with their faces to where the bright spot of light fell on the red velvet, fingering their rosaries, their lips moving in prayer. Still further back, the television technicians had erected an extending ladder and had mounted a camera to film the queue and the cross, and newspaper photographers, muttering in reverently low tones, were exploding flash bulbs from all angles.

  As Henry watched, a group of young men approached, knelt quickly and crossed themselves, huddling together in a bunch. When they rose they had left a broad strip of white ribbon lying across the corner of the red velvet.

  Caporelli sighed. ‘They never give up,’ he said sadly.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The colours,’ Caporelli whispered. ‘Red and white! The colours of Austria! It’s all happening in reverse now. It’s not so long since the ballerinas of La Scala had their dresses designed in red, white and green and people threw them bouquets in the Austrian colours just for the pleasure of seeing them decline to pick them up.’

  Someone had snatched away the white ribbon now and there was a little angry pushing going on in the shadows by the church door where a policeman had intercepted the young men. At the entrance to the sacristy Henry could see Father Anselmo and Father Gianpiero watching anxiously and just behind them the crimson of the Bishop of Trepizano. Beyond him, further inside, there was a man in a black soutane edged with red who was writing rapidly in a notebook.

  ‘From the Vatican Library,’ Caporelli murmured. ‘Getting it all down for posterity.’

  In the afternoon they noticed that the Wolfhof Restaurant near the lake had changed its name. From being the Ristorante del Lago it had suddenly become the Ristorante del Santuario.

  ‘I’ve seen three Ristorantes della Croce,’ Caporelli said with a grin, ‘and one which rejoices in the name of Ristorante della Croce di San Lazzaro di Cadivescovo. That’s a mouthful if you want to take your wife out to dine. To say nothing of the fact that they’re jumping the gun a bit and sanctifying him before the Church’s made up its mind. Every woodcarver in the district’s at it carving crosses, and they’ve even sent to Berne and Brienz in Switzerland for more. They can’t make them fast enough.’

  Henry laughed at his cynicism.

  ‘The next step’s a floating chapel anchored out there in the lake,’ Caporelli went on. ‘I’ve already heard that there’s been a suggestion that they borrow an old boat for Father Anselmo to do up.’

  He saw the look on Henry’s face and his smile disappeared. ‘I was born in Naples,’ he explained, ‘and in Naples it seemed to me that we always had too many churches and not enough homes, too many fine ornaments and not enough funds.’ He gestured. ‘Soon it will be the same here. We shall not be able to move for relics.’

  Out on the grey waters of the lake there was a cluster of boats in the direction of the Punta dei Fiori and they could see cars all along the edge of the beach. Already a few of the more enterprising painters from Madonna del Piano were offering dramatic daubs marked Emergence of the Cross among the tourists, and they’d got their wares propped against the back of the former Customs House that Dei Monti had taken over for his equipment.

  Sister Ursula was standing among the crowd with an apron round her middle, a group of her orphans squatting about her feet over bowls on a canvas sheet, all of them rubbing with their fingers to clean the mud off salvaged objects.

  ‘Let’s go and see what they’ve found,’ Caporelli suggested.

  Even as they stopped the car on the old mole they saw the biggest of the boats drawing alongside. As they climbed out, they saw Professor Dei Monti step ashore, followed by Maggie Daniells and one or two young men. They were met by two other men standing by a big French Citroën, and they all shook hands warmly. There seemed to be excitement in the air.

  The sun had come through the clouds and there were several young men working on the deck of the boat among the aqualung equipment. There seemed to be several dark green objects on the deck and the winch was already going, lifting them ashore, the exhaust thudding away in the still air. Then they saw Maggie Daniells break away from the group on the mole and approach them on the way to the telephone.

  She stopped as she passed them and the look in her eyes as she stared at Henry was one of triumph.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll ever drain your dam this way now, Dr Chappell,’ she said, her voice high with excitement. ‘Not now. We’ve definitely established that Arcuneum is under the water there. We’ve done a series of exploratory dives and we’ve found the remains of more walls that link up with the ruined fort up there.’ Her arm gestured towards the hill. ‘And we’ve brought up several fragments of timber – obviously from Lazzaro’s barge.’

  Henry was conscious of a flattening of his spirit. ‘I’m very pleased for you,’ he said sincerely. ‘But I’m very sorry for Cadivescovo. Ged knows what will happen this winter now.’

  She didn’t seem to hear him. She was excited and eager as she indicated the men by the boat. ‘That’s Utoio from Milan,’ she said. ‘And Wertz from Berne. Martini’s expected later in the day. They’re very excited by what we’ve found.’ She turned away, then she stopped and looked back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said with an impulsiveness that made her seem very young. ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t want to interfere with your plans but we just couldn’t let you get away with it, could we?’

  By evening the exploration group had laid all their finds on the quay, watched by small boys and tourists and the policemen they’d managed to wheedle out of Inspector Castelrossi to act as a guard. Their discoveries lay on the sheet of tarpaulin, black from their long immersion and crusted with the minute life of the lake.

  Sister Ursula’s orphans worked behind them, all of them looking pleased with themselves. There was the neck of a thick pottery jar, and what was clearly the head of a column, together with a few torn fragments of aluminium that looked oddly out of place and were obviously from the ditched aircraft whi
ch had carried the mine that had started the search. Most of the objects were unidentified by notices, but Maggie Daniells, returned from her telephoning and skipping round the edge of the crowd with her notebook, seemed only too anxious to point out to the pressmen who had appeared just what everything was.

  ‘Timbers,’ she was saying. ‘From Bishop Lazzaro’s barge. We think we might even be able to reconstruct it in time.’ She knelt, the dark hair falling across her face as she fingered the small objects on the tarpaulin. ‘Clench nails and lead – from an anchor. They can only mean one thing. This is where Lazzaro’s barge sank and this is where Arcuneum stood. This was the place he was visiting when he was drowned.’

  She straightened up. ‘We’ve found walls and mosaic,’ she went on. ‘And we firmly believe they are part of Arcuneum. It was certainly established here by the Greeks, and fell to the Barbarians in the sixth century. It was rebuilt, of course, over there’ – she indicated the town with a sweep of her arm – ‘and became known as Arcono and later as Cadivescovo or Arzen. We’ve already identified four circular pits as grain cellars and we hope to get an echo-sounder and put more buoys down’ – the reporters were writing quickly, then she looked up and caught sight of Henry – ‘if we’re not prevented,’ she ended.

  One of the reporters looked up from his notebook. ‘Prevented?’ he said. ‘What is there to prevent you?’

  ‘There are interests,’ she said, ‘that would like to destroy Arcuneum before it’s been properly explored.’

  ‘Who’d want to do that? What are these interests? Political?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve not had threats from the Montanari?’

  ‘Not about Arcuneum.’

  ‘You can speak openly. We’re not afraid to publish.’

  She gave the reporter a sudden scared look, as though she were becoming too deeply involved, and began to back away, raising her hands in front of her.

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘It’s not political.’

  ‘Religious?’

  ‘No, no. I can’t say. Not at this stage.’

  She almost broke into a run to board the boat.

  The next morning Corriere di Colleno carried a headline: Attempt to Destroy Arcuneum. Sabotage at Site of Newly Discovered Town.

  ‘Sabotage,’ Henry said. ‘That’s the end!’

  Caporelli shrugged it off and almost dragged Henry from his breakfast.

  ‘To see the Bishop,’ he said. ‘To see if he can call the dogs off.’

  Trepizano seemed to huddle beneath the limestone cliffs of Monte Cano that towered behind it as a background of spires and fortifications. Although it had been Austrian until 1919, it was Italian in character and had been for centuries. And at the moment it seemed to be full of police.

  There was a barrier just outside the town gate, with a couple of police cars parked across the road so that there was room for only one vehicle at a time to pass, and the inevitable policemen standing in the gap, a flash of red and white and black against the grey crumbling walls of the town.

  ‘I documenti, per favore!’

  They waved Caporelli to a stop and insisted on inspecting their papers. They seemed to know Caporelli well but they only spoke to him in monosyllables, their faces frozen and uninformative as they worked. Nearby, another group of policemen were searching a small van, dragging sacks out of the back and dumping them in the roadway while the owner stood mutely alongside, his face full of disgust.

  Caporelli climbed out of the car and unlocked the boot and they removed the spare wheel and the jack and examined every corner of it.

  ‘You’ll find no plastic in there,’ Caporelli told them.

  They ignored him and worked silently, examining his briefcase and looking under the seats. Then they placed everything back and waved them on.

  Caporelli clicked his heels in a mock military salute and bowed before climbing back into the car. The policemen stared at him expressionlessly. He grinned at Henry and started the engine and they moved slowly through the great arched stone gate into Trepizano, watched by the policemen who seemed to be waiting in every doorway and every alley-end.

  It was a narrow, antique town of curiously spacious piazzas where water welled sluggishly from the mouths of bronze dolphins into the shallow basins of fountains, of basilicas and tall shuttered buildings and churches where shadows were brought by the great rock pylons of Monte Cano behind the city before their time. Although its streets had Italian names and houses optimistically painted in the Italian style with non-existent balustrades and windows and even statuary, there were still Tyrolean names on the shops and Austrian squares, and here and there Tyrolean ironwork signs and the Gothic-letter signboards and steeper roofs of a more snowy northland. There were plenty of white stockings and leather shorts about, too, and a red granite church with an openwork spire standing in defiance of the renaissance-style buildings of Mussolini’s day. Across the lake, the mountains glittered in the sunshine and they could see the saw-toothed edge of the Catena di Saga.

  Henry had been in Trepizano only once before – for a few minutes on his way from the Bolzano train to the bus to Cadivescovo – and it had been full of students then, on their way from the University to their homes. The police had been vetting them on the station as he’d passed through because there’d been riots with the ending of the term at the University and massed students had staged a sit-down protest in the centre of the Martin Knoller Strasse, and there had been a few blows exchanged with the police.

  As the train had drawn into the station, excited boys had been standing in groups with cardboard notices – Freedom for the Tyrol and The Tyrol was never Italian – and just behind them, so there’d be no trouble, groups of frozen-faced policemen. There had been a lot of shouting and a few South Tyrol slogans were yelled at the unmoved police, and everybody had been edgy because they all knew that ‘Hofer’s Montanari were largely students. When Henry had deposited his cases in the left-luggage office to find some food they’d made him open them before they’d accept them, and the waiter in the bar where he’d gone for a sandwich had obviously been ready to suspect him because the Italian he spoke had a northern intonation.

  The Bishop’s Palace was a spacious building looking out on to gardens full of oleanders and palms, and the Bishop’s secretary, a grave-faced cleric in black, escorted them down to a room overlooking the lake. The Palace was silent and cool, but the Bishop was a busy man, obsessed by the new fame that had sprung on him overnight. He was young, with a pale face, and he revelled in his titles and saw in the rising of Lazzaro’s Cross and the unearthing, after centuries, of the site of Lazzaro’s monastery the symbols of his own career. The diocese of Trepizano was no sinecure. It was far from Rome and he was a Florentine and wanted to move further back into the main thoroughfare of events. He had already seen that the Cross of Lazzaro might well be the vehicle that could carry him there.

  ‘Dr Chappell,’ he said. ‘We ask only for a little time. Next season it will be different. By the end of the summer all that is of real value might well be found.’

  ‘By next summer, my Lord, it might well be too late,’ Henry pointed out.

  The Bishop spread his hands and sat back in his chair, fingering his episcopal ring. ‘Even you, Dottore, though I assume you are not of our faith, must see how important these discoveries are to us – and to the Church generally. We are unearthing a civilization.’

  ‘I see all of this, my Lord.’ Henry tried not to feel frustrated. ‘But I’m an engineer, and it seems to me that safety is of far greater importance than the discovery of a few relics.’

  He realized immediately that in his blundering way he had said the wrong thing. The Bishop’s face grew stern.

  ‘A few relics?’ he said coldly. ‘Dottore, we are unearthing the very beginnings of Christianity in the areas out of the influence of Rome. In the discovery of Arcuneum we are witnessing the very spread of Christ’s word in the hinterland beyond the reach of the Church. I would
not call them a few relics.’

  ‘My Lord Bishop!’ Caporelli interrupted as he saw Henry floundering. ‘Surely you have the safety of Cadivescovo at heart?’

  The Bishop frowned, as though he regarded the words as a criticism. ‘But of course. Who would dare to suggest that I haven’t?’

  ‘Perhaps the Lord Bishop would be prepared then to go with us and see the dam for himself?’

  ‘I’m more than prepared to do that,’ the Bishop said. ‘If you’d care to submit a report to my secretary I’ll give it my earnest and immediate attention.’

  Caporelli fidgeted and sighed, but the Bishop didn’t seem to notice.

  He was staring at Henry and gesturing with his ringed hand. ‘I have on my hands what amounts to a minor miracle,’ he was saying. ‘There has been a movement on foot for years for the sanctification of Bishop Lazzaro. Inevitably Rome is interested. Inevitably it will be investigated by the Congregation of Rites. Inevitably I shall be called upon to supply information. Inevitably the rising of the cross will be considered. There is a great deal to be done in the collation of evidence.’

  He managed a smile. ‘As I’m sure you’ve been told more than once,’ he went on, ‘this is a neglected district. We haven’t sufficient funds for our churches. We haven’t the population to support them. We haven’t many of the things we ought to have. And among these things we haven’t got is a saint.’

  He allowed himself to smile further, but behind the smile his eyes were serious and, as he went on, Henry began to see him in a different light suddenly, troubled like Caporelli and Sister Ursula by ‘Hofer’s’ Montanari, uncertain how to act and eager for peace, yet aware of his own ‘foreign-ness’ in a district where the family spirit was narrow, and hostility to anything or anyone from south of Verona was marked and active.